Canadian secure ID company set to expand

A new chief executive officer is set to take over a Canadian secure authentication startup next month as it prepares to expand internationally and the federal government readies to expand the use of its cloud-bases service.

SecureKey Technologies Inc. said Friday that Charles Watson, former executive vice-president of secure smart card reader and chipmaker Inside Secure has been hired as CEO and will start in August.

The move comes two months after Toronto-based SecureKey announced a $30 million round of funding led by Intel Capital, the venture investment arm of Intel Corp. Other investors included the vencap arm of Rogers Communications, Telus Corp., Visa Inc. MasterCard and Discover Financial Services.

In January Intel Corp. announced it had inked a deal to put SecureKey’s technology in upcoming Ultrabook laptops using the Ivy Bridge chipsets as part of its Identity Protection Technology.

SecureKey founder and chairman Greg Wolfond (pictured) said some of the $30 million enabled the company to hire Watson and allow him to step back to become executive chairman.

Wolfond said he and several former 724 Solutions staff began working on the concept behind SecureKey in 2007.

“How you do identity on the Internet has been a problem forever,” he said. “There’s no way to know who you are.”

SecureKey’s approach of leveraging NFC, he said, could “wipe out fraud.”

He noted that several provinces are looking at embedding smart chips in drivers licences and healthcare cards.

Wolfond, who had been CEO, said he’ll now concentrate on working with SecureKey customers and making sure the company’s technology is the best. He added he’s not thinking about the next company he’ll create, nor selling or taking SecureKey public.

“We’re still building the business, so we’re not looking at exit plans right now. We think we’re in the right place in how to solve this problem of identity and authentication for banks, for telcos, for governments. We think its still early days for building out that business.”</div

Currently a freelance writer, I'm the former editor of ITWorldCanada.com and Computing Canada. An IT journalist since 1997, I've written for several of ITWC's sister publications including ITBusiness.ca and Computer Dealer News. Before that I was a staff reporter at the Calgary Herald and the Brampton (Ont.) Daily Times.

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